Memoir of a Country Road (by Roger Baker)

Tag Archives: Poem

The Erda house was the house of our dreams, the house we built together, the house in which we reared our children, the house in which we intended to grow old together, to which we would welcome our children and grandchildren for decades to come. But it was not to be. After 17 years in that house, that beautiful house, she asked me to leave, and the dream ended. And that house, she tells me, will soon be for sale, on the market. I wrote this poem to express my old hopes, my dreams, my memories, the agonies of human disappointment—as well as new hopes and dreams for a new future.

THE HOUSE

This is the house:wherechildren scamperedthrough rough-ploughed soil, pickup up stones and sticksin advanceof the grumbling John Deere,disking;just two, he was,in broad arcs runningaround the house,barefoot in Spring turfwith untroubled joy, screaming “Whoopie Ti Yi Yo!”;wherein that room, up there,after church, we withdrew—“Your mom and I need to talk.Alone,” I announced,and we talked a littleas we kissed and grabbedand our eyes rolled back,and the littlest sat,her back to the door,coloring, waitingfor the door knob to turn;wherelightning sought out the chimneythrough the squall,blackened outlets,knocked out the phones;her three-year-old voicechuckled all callers:“We’re not home . . . orwe can’t find the phone . . .please leavea message.”

This is the house:whereour goats died,our kittens died,our dogs died,the skunks and raccoons died,and we buried them allin the garden,sprinkled with rose petals,sprinkled with children’s tears,tucked in with old sheets,topped with stick crossesthat fell over,covered overwith wild grassand fast-spreading peppermintand morning glory vines,clinging and clambering,obscuring the low mounds,next the empty arborwhere the grapes would not grow,where the rotting birdhouses perched,houses for angry yellow jackets.

This is the house:wheresmoke oozingfrom the chimneymeant a welcome firein the stove, lighted by children who sometimes forgotto open the fluewith the sliding lever,handled with a spring-like bulbthat burned its printon your handat the base,a welcome, hot, orange, roaring fire,air hissing throughintake vents,children lolling on the floor,on the rag rug I woveon a handmade loomfrom thrift store wool skirtscut in repurposed strips,children staring, hypnotizedto happy stupor, wakingenough to ask “should I put in another log?”logs cut with Mathew’sHusqvarna, borrowed still after his heart quit,lots cut from the ancient cottonwood treewhere the Bald Eagle once stood,surveying, glaringat my mere humanityfar below.

This is the house:wherewe built our chicken coop,gathered warm pastel eggs,clucked to the hens,cut the head offthe devil rooster;wherewe planted our garden,holding our breath for weeksuntil corn bladesshot up, improbably,pulling weeds, interminably,sweltering under mid-Saturday sunfor more weeks untilwe did not care anymore;we knew tomatoesby the red spotsin the green morass.

This is the house:wherewe sang campfire songs—“Swing Low Sweet Chariot”“White Wings”“Springtime in the Rockies”—roasted wieners, roasted apples,threw the baseball,chased the bolted goldendoodle pup,freed the Black-chinned Hummingbirdfrom garage incarceration;wherewe cried and screamed and sang and laughed,chased the goatsthat jumped their fence,found the neighbors’black angus bullin the back yard,heard the Ring-necked Pheasant’s“Er! Er!” in the man-tall grass,heard the Mourning Dove’smuffled wail;wherewe walked on cool evenings,a family,on the dirt farm roadnamed Rabbit Lane.

This is the housethat was mineuntil you told me to leave,told me to leave,that was mine,then was yours,till you sold,till you sold.ThiswasThe House.

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Living alone changes a person. I have lived alone nearly three years now, after 27 years of marriage. The longer I live alone, the more difficult it is for me to be around people. I become anxious as they use my towels, dirty my dishes, watch my TV, sleep in my spare beds (not making them the next morning), and occupy my space. I feel compelled to put everything back in its place when they leave. When I began this new phase of my life, I could foresee the danger of drawing into myself with time as I lived alone. I wrote this poem one week into the experience. I fear I have fulfilled my own poetic prophecy of misanthropy. I need to work that much harder to be social with people in their space and in my space. If I am not careful, I will become the hermit I feared. (I am not feeling sorry for myself, just noticing subtleties of change in a human spirit.)

THE TRICK

This will be the trick:
to not slip into idiosyncrasy,
peculiarity, even
queerness,
needing everything to be
just so, or nothing
to be just so;
to not harden to stone or ice, but
to not melt entirely away.

(I took the above photo of a sunrise moon from my apartment balcony a few days ago.)

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I experienced today, in church, a moment of purity, of innocence, of love, not due to any sermon or ritual or hymn, but as a gift from a small child.

LITTLE GIRL

I chanced to glance
at a little girl of three
sitting nearby
in the pew:
she looked up at me,
an old man,
not comely to warrant,
and smiled a smile
bright as the spring sun
full on my face.
I could not refrain
reciprocation
and twisted a grin
in return, and found
ice melting,
stone warming,
stiff boughs bending.
Another glance
revealed
colored pencils scratching
intently
between the lines.

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Wind blows hard from the south in Summer, the north in Winter, catching the sheet metal at its corners, pulling, ripping, and flapping until it tears off and flies away. So many nights I laid in bed, listening to the grinding and rapping, unable to sleep, powerless to stop it, and dreading the repair job. Still, I was proud of my makeshift coop in Erda, Utah, and my chickens and their eggs, and the dusty, sweet smell of dry straw. This is poem is about needing to anchor the roof down against the wind, a metaphor for anchoring our lives to sound principles against the storms of life.

ANCHORS IN WIND

Wind blows noisily through the leaves,
snaps the brittle branches,
penetrates the pores in my window
screen, sibilating angrily,
seeking for bottles and knick-knacks
to knock off the sills
to break and spill upon the floor,
slams my door on its whooshing way out,
where I have neglected to place a stopping cushion.
The old steel on the chicken coop roof
has come unscrewed on its southern windward sides
to creek and groan and complain and moan
until I climb the stepladder with
a new box of screws
to really, this time,
anchor it down.

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Oh Pioneers! Song of the Open Road. I have enjoyed reading these and other poems from Walt Whitman’s anthology Leaves of Grass. Whitman shows such ebullience and enthusiasm for life, such hope for the progress of humanity. After reading these more than once, I thought to write my own poem about this journey of life, after my own heart and style, inspired by Whitman.

TRAVELERS

Ho!
Fellow traveler!
Share the road
with a vagabond?
May I walk with you
to wherever?
I’ll be glad
of your company,
to be sure!
Such a dusty, lonely road
it has been.
Look at these shoes!
The holes in the soles!
Now, they have seen
a pretty mile or two,
and have a story or two
to tell! Aye!
Hey—them is prodigious
holes of your own!
Wary that stone, now,
friend,
for tis but the tip
of a larger,
and would break your kicking toe!
Whence hail you,
if you do not mind?
It be a long way?
Aye, that be a distance!
You seek
a situation, then, employ?
Or, may I be bold,
my new friend,
flee you a broken heart?
I understand you, aye,
only too well.
Though you walk and walk,
the break follows,
and the sorrow.
You search for solace:
tis natural.
And death—
you know it?
That we all flee,
yet it follows, too close,
stalking,
at times, too close,
from us taking,
left and right,
the ones we love
most. Aye. Aye.
I know it, too,
my brother….
But, my dear fellow!
Look!
See!
The sun sets behind.
Always behind!
And on the morrow?
A New Sun rises!
To be sure.
To be sure!
Let not us part
the way we walk
together,
for we will find
companionship in company,
in the step step step
of our direction,
in the clop clop clop
of our resolve.
The morrow
we will command!
The Heavens will send manna,
coveys of quail,
and waters
from the dry stone!
You shall see!
You shall certainly see!

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Are we not all wanderers, searchers, seekers? No matter the strength or persuasion of our faith, no matter our accumulation of years and wisdom, still we trudge through time and space. Sometimes we dance, tip-toe. Often we wallow and slog. Mists of darkness move in to shroud our discernment, obscure our way. Such clouds are a thing of this world only, for the sun always shines, always burns at millions of degrees and sends light and warmth over millions of miles, to us. I offer this poem to the good people of earth who care about doing good and right, who sometimes lose their way, and who keep on walking the path.

WILDERNESS

“I am in a wilderness,”
you said to me. Still,
the cross rests round
your neck. Delicate silver.
Waves crash against pier and rock:
I can hear through your open door.
“It grows bigger,
my wilderness, the expanse
wider.”
Crashing waves; cars
throttling away; voices
through the wall;
the cat slinks by;
a movie plays
in the next room.
You bake muffins, chocolate chip,
in the tin, wondering,
silver resting on skin.
You sit high on a stool
at the table, sipping coffee,
sipping brandy,
thinking Help me, Jesus
with a chill:
you have to go
out once again, out
to make your way, somehow.
I am
in my
wilderness.

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I closed my eyes as my son eased into a Bach cello suite during his recent lesson. I drifted quickly into serenity and dream. Keep playing this song, I thought. Never stop. And the words began to appear, first describing what I heard, what I felt, then what I saw, and finally what I became.

PLAY ME A SONG

Play me a song
on that big string cello,
low and slow,
to swell in my chest
and tighten my throat
and get me to crying soft.
Play me that song
again. I want to hear it.
I want to hear
as the walls fall away
and the roof flies off
and trees and flowers
grow up through the decomposing floor,
around me, close,
aromatic, shading
as the song goes on,
low and slow,
till my cocoon is complete
and I wait until Spring
to emerge, your song
still sweet in my ears.